Tuesday 2 March 2010

To sleep.......perchance to dream....

What is it about not being able to sleep?
When my routine, such as it is! is disturbed, or I come back again from up North where I have spent 3 nights in another place, I find it hard to settle down.......
Trying to get to sleep is an art in itself........so many thoughts whirl round my head...........in random succession......
I have always been a light sleeper and have resorted in the past to putting the bedside clock in a drawer....sometimes wrapped in tights!
It's a bit like the Princess and The Pea but with a different slant!
I am not like my cat who can sleep anywhere...........and cats even have a poem written about it!

Cats sleep anywhere

Any table, any chair

Top of piano, window ledge

In the middle, on the edge

Open drawer, empty shoe

Anybody’s lap will do

Fitted in a cardboard box

In a cupboard with your frocks

Anywhere, they don’t care

Cats sleep anywhere

Then my dear Timelord husband can sleep at the drop of a hat.........oh that I could!
When I was small, I did not sleep then either, keeping my parents awake, or waking them very early!! When apparently my dad asked the doctor about it, he told him I had "too much nervous energy".
I woke my parents one morning about 6.00am or so, to ask them what a brontosaurus was! I had a full set of Arthur Mee's encyclopaedias, and I loved the pictures and stories.I got the answer I was expecting!!
I read at an early age, and I had the joy of teaching Matt to read before he went to school at 5 years old.
Schools in the area then, near Portsmouth, had 3 intakes a year, so he went just after his 5th birthday in April.
Not all children are ready to read at the same rates.

But I digress.......
Sleep.......according to Shakespeare........"knits up the ravelled sleeve of care" quote from Macbeth.

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast"
I love the thought of sleep being the balm of hurt minds........ nothing better than a refreshing night's sleep, a natural sleep, which comes creeping in like a wave and closes over our heads.
I wish....................!
I had to take sleeping tablets for a short time around Christmas, as the doctor felt I wouldn't cope well without them after a very stressful few months.
I would take one, only to wake 4 hours later in the small hours, back to where I began!

It's interesting to decide what to listen too in the wee small hours........
I have a digital radio walkman, so I don't disturb my slumbering hubby.

Radio 2 is too stimulating,
Radio 3 too full on, as I get involved in the music and then am wide awake!
Radio 4 .........no
Radio 7.........well the jury's out on this one, as it serves it's purpose if I really cannot sleep and there is a story, or classic serial.........trouble is then, when I get to 6.00am I am too tired to think about another day!
Jazz FM same as Radio 2!!
So, here I am, sun pouring in on a beautiful day, after a night of sleeping and waking.........
Here I go..............................and the first thoughts I always have are always the same.........that will never change.
Love you Matt. It's one of " Your" days. Glorious sunshine, and blue skies, birds singing, and maybe, just maybe a promise of spring?